I kind of like being me. Apparently there are some other folks who do as well.
I like my name. Will is just a wee bit unusual without being outright weird. My given name is Willis. That’s also my Dad’s name. I have no idea where it came from. I would have chosen William, but I didn’t pick it. I did, however, turn right around and name my oldest son the same thing.
A pair of Dabbs brothers came down to Mississippi from Virginia somewhere around 1900. They split up and went to two different parts of the state, eventually producing a whole pile of Dabbses.
One of our brood perished in a riot many years ago. I like to think he was killed saving some little kid from being trampled. Heck, he probably started the thing and got what he deserved. The details have been lost to time.
Reputation
Your name is forever associated with your character. Kevin Spacey was an amazingly gifted actor right up until he was exposed as a pervert. Harvey Weinstein was an incredibly successful movie producer until he came out as a sexual predator. Jeffrey Epstein was … well, you get my point.
On Christmas Eve 2022, 48-year-old Jennifer Heath Box sat shivering in a cold jail cell in the Broward County Jail in South Florida. Her son was a U.S. Marine scheduled to ship out for a three-year tour in Okinawa on the 27th.
Earlier in the day, Jennifer and her husband had returned from a six-day cruise. As she processed back into the country, Customs and Border Protection officers arrested her for having somehow endangered a child. Before being placed in confinement, she was strip-searched and fitted for a prison uniform.
It seems that Jennifer Delcarmen Heath, a 25-year-old mother of two, did indeed have an active warrant out for child endangerment. The cops had grabbed the wrong Jennifer Heath despite literally no physical similarities between the two women.
The perp was 23 years younger, Hispanic, and 5 inches shorter than the incarcerated Jennifer. It took three days of intense effort on the part of her family to get the innocent Jennifer out of jail. She missed her son’s deployment because she sort of had the same name as some deadbeat mom whom she had never met.
This deep into the Information Age, license plate readers routinely keep track of where you’re driving and scan for warrants. Interlinked computers notify law enforcement officials when wanted people come up on the grid.
That Leviathan system is a legitimately great way to help protect the public from evil-doers. However, garbage in — garbage out. That system is only as good as whoever inputs the data or how it is utilized. In the case of Jennifer Heath Box, somebody just made a mistake.
Closer to Home
If you’ve never Googled yourself, I’d recommend you do so. Just get ready for a potential shock. In my case, it seemed I had killed somebody.
This was news to me. I have Jesus in my heart and strive ever to treat others the way I’d like to be treated. I also do a pretty decent job of controlling my emotions. Being calm in a crisis is kind of my superpower.
If I ever shoot anybody, I want it to be while saving the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders from some evil super villain, not because somebody cut me off in traffic. However, apparently, my doppelganger in Boynton Beach, Florida, did not share that worldview.
The Florida Will Dabbs did not sound like a terribly nice person. The details were disputed, as is always the case. However, the gist seems to be that this Will Dabbs and his boss, Larry Modena, had a rocky relationship.
Modena helped Dabbs’ wife, Susan, secure a restraining order against him. Dabbs then claimed that Modena became angry because he would share his oxycodone pills. This all came to a head in a Home Depot parking lot.
What is not disputed is that this Will Dabbs shot and killed Larry Modena with a .38-caliber revolver. He then abandoned the dying man in his Lexus before taking flight. He pointed the gun at pursuing police officers, who promptly shot him for his trouble. Dabbs survived the shooting and was eventually sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison.
Dabbs’ conviction was appealed and overturned on a technicality. During his retrial, he was convicted of manslaughter. I couldn’t determine what happened after that.
No offense to the other Will Dabbs who apparently goes about murdering people, but this is not the tool I would have chosen were it me.
Wow, It’s a Trend…
Back in 1971, one William F. Dabbs of Colorado was convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of his wife, Sarah A. Dabbs, and some guy named Ernest E. Love. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but later changed his plea to guilty. That got him out of the death penalty, but I couldn’t determine what ultimately became of him.
It’s sobering to find two murderers sharing your own kind of unusual name. I just hope there is never any confusion while I’m coming off a cruise ship. I think I’d sooner stand on my own merits. Those other two guys sound like jerks.